


A Man Can Be a Superhero As Well As a Very Dirty Middle-Aged Man

by halloa_what_is_this



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Domesticity, M/M, and Sherlock being a sneaky dirty old man, and fluff, at Tesco, hopefully, still counts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 13:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3980581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halloa_what_is_this/pseuds/halloa_what_is_this
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So my wife said: <i>Like, </i>you <i>could be writing about Sherlock and John going to Tesco and it would be my favourite thing.</i></p><p>Well then.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Man Can Be a Superhero As Well As a Very Dirty Middle-Aged Man

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Он может быть одновременно и супергероем, и непристойно ведущим себя мужчиной средних лет](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12748827) by [Little_Unicorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Unicorn/pseuds/Little_Unicorn)



_Jam_ , said the piece of paper.

 _Bread_ , was the next, very obvious item.

 _Goose fat_ , stated the last, very hurriedly scrawled reminder.

“John!” screamed Sherlock.

“Pipe down, you idiot! We’re in public.”

John picked up a jar of gooseberry jam with his left hand, a jar of strawberry he usually preferred already in his right. He weighed them as if to see if the weight could somehow tell him which one he should take home with him.

He would go with the strawberry. He always did.

So predictable. Sherlock loved it.

“We oft are. Have been ever since you decided it would be a good idea to start writing about our cases and publishing them in the world wide web for everyone to see. The question, however, is: why am _I_ here?”

A small boy with his mother ( _43, in a 15-year relationship with another woman, left-handed (like John), a doctor (like John), enjoys rugby (like John) and watching Wonders of the Universe (like John) with her son_ ) walked by, the woman stopped to look at the canned goods on the opposite side of the narrow aisle while the boy staid still with his eyes glued to a comic magazine.

Sherlock peeked at the cover (he had to crouch very, very low).

Spider-Man. John’s favourite comic hero when he was growing up.

The boy turned a page, glancing up long enough to see who was standing next to him.

“Stephen, dear, don’t wander off,” the woman said absently, reading the label on a can of pears.

“Don’t go too far, Sherlock,” John said from his side, still staring at the jar of jams like he was faced with the most difficult decision of his life.

The boy’s eyes grew wider and wider as he stared at Sherlock, the comic book hanging forgotten from his hands. His mouth dropped open.

Sherlock put his finger to his mouth and made a small hushing sound, then winked confidentially.

The boy shut his mouth with a snap.

Sherlock put his hand in his pocket and drew out his magnifying glass. Winking again, he handed it to the boy who took it after a moment, clearly not believing what was happening. The glass gleamed on his palm ( _his small slightly shaking palm_ ) and he looked up at Sherlock, his mouth hanging open again.

Sherlock patted his pocket. The boy stuffed his gift hurriedly in the pocket of his jeans, closing his mouth so fast his jaw made a loud _glomp_.

“Come on then, love,” the woman said and took the boy’s hand again. Walking along with his mother, the boy kept staring behind himself. Sherlock raised his hand to a small wave and slowly, shyly the boy waved back. His mother saw that he was not paying full attention to the cans of spaghetti and turned to look as well.

“Right then,” John said cheerily, placing the jar of strawberry in the basket. “What’s next on the list?”

He took Sherlock’s hand and led him towards the end of the store and the enticing aroma of freshly baked bread.

Sherlock looked behind himself to see the boy smiling widely, pointing at their retrieving backs and his mother listening with an expression of surprise and love parents always give their children when they are excited about something.

God, how he envied her.

“You want wheat or wholegrain?” asked John.

He was once again weighing two different items in his hands, steadily not looking at the rest of the things on the shelf marked simply as _Bread_ but which seemed to include more options than it was ever necessary for an everyday shopper to have when they just wanted something flat to smack their jam on top of.

“I want rye made into sourdough and baked in mild temperature for three hours. Oh, and topped with sesame seeds. I like a bit of a crunch.”

John looked up from his breads, horrified that he would actually have to find something like that from the miles and miles of shelf.

Sherlock kissed the corner of his mouth and snickered.

“Just kidding.”

John deflated.

“Rye bread traditionally does not have any seeds on it.”

He caught the bag of wholegrain John threw at his face and breathed in the smell.

“Serves you right for dragging me along,” he dropped the bag in the basket.

“You _wanted_ to come,” John whined as Sherlock took his hand and lead him back towards the aisle of canned goods that was bound to include the damn jar of goose fat he had no idea why anyone would ever need.

“I didn’t know it would take you five hours to choose a jar of jam. Now, what do you need that goose fat for?”

“It’s for the chicken. For the dinner.”

Sherlock looked puzzled.

“Greg and Molly are coming?”

Sherlock kept on looking puzzled.

“And Mycroft?”

Sherlock’s expression turned to horrified.

“It’s your _birthday_ on Wednesday.”

Like John before, Sherlock deflated completely, but not from relief.

“Why?” he whined.

John browsed the shelves with different sorts of disgusting things in them ( _why are all the greasy and pickled things on the same shelf?_ ), looking for the necessary one.

“Because your mother and father love each other very much and 40 years ago they decided that your intolerable big brother needed an intolerable baby brother or sister to torment and so along came you.”

He exclaimed happily at the sight of a jar full of glue-like substance. Sherlock wondered how he could get away with having to eat it _and_ having to eat it with his big brother sitting across the table. First thing he thought of was to sneak out of the bedroom window early on Wednesday morning, but those kind of plans were shot to the leg when John had begun to sleep in the same room and while that made up for (almost) every bad thing in the world, Sherlock had to come up with alternative escape routes.

He wondered if he would be able to sneak out while John was in the shower. But John showered in the evenings, and the time he took in the loo in the mornings would not be sufficient enough to allow an escape via a second-floor window without breaking anything in the process. Then again, John would probably take extensive measures in securing the window before going to bed.

Sneaking through the kitchen and the sitting room and actually using the front door was obviously out of the question. John would likely alarm Mrs Hudson beforehand and even though she was a frail old lady, her hearing was still perfect and she could scare you half to death with a look and glare lightnings that hit you in the heels as you ran away.

Escaping the evening before was no use either. For one, he would have to find a place to stay for the night _and_ the next day. Secondly, he would miss a night of sleeping next to John _as well as_ a possible opportunity for sex.

_Sex._

Sherlock smirked.

Always a good way to tire someone and escape in the wake.

He just had to come up with something  _really_ good that would make John unaware of his actions for a while.

“John,” he purred, “we’re out of condoms.”

“No, we aren’t,” John replied.

“Lube.”

“Nor that.”

“Tissues.”

“Nope.”

“Bondage gear?”

“We don’t own any.”

Standing in the queue to the till, Sherlock was trying very hard to come up with a sex thing they were missing ( _rubber suits vibrators erotic literature satin sheets with their initials on them, wait what?_ ) that could be found from an aisle in their neighbourhood Tesco.

“5.56, then, love,” said the woman bagging their groceries in one of the ridiculously frail see-through bags.

She stared at the jar of goose fat.

“What do you need this for, then?”

“For a chicken,” John replied. “I like to use that, ‘cause otherwise the meat will dry.”

He turned to look at Sherlock.

“It’s for his birthday dinner. His favourite dish, isn’t it, Sherlock?”

“Whipped cream!” Sherlock yelped.

John, the cashier and everyone else around them went silent.

“They have it here,” Sherlock stammered.

“Yes, they do,” John agreed.

“Yes, we do,” the cashier agreed too.

Around them, the other cashiers and customers waiting for their shopping to be bagged agreed as well.

“I should get some,” Sherlock continued and turned around.

John grabbed his hand, the sudden small clink of metal against metal pulling Sherlock out of his daze of _nakedJohnblacklacecandlewaxchocolatesaucestrawberrieschampagnevideocamera_.

“We have it at home,” John said gently, pulling him towards the exit.

The cashier waved after them, hoping they’d enjoy their dinner and wished Sherlock a happy birthday.

John’s hand staid in his while he stuffed his wallet back into his trouser pocket, the bag of groceries hanging from his arm. The little _clinkety-clink_ of gold hitting gold, too quiet for any regular person to hear, escaped him completely as well but it was the only thing Sherlock could hear, even though all around him the Monday shoppers continued to chatter, the speakers continued to blare cheery music and the overall whirring and buzzing of London kept on whirring and buzzing as loud as ever.

John held his hand all the way back to 221B, up the stairs and into the kitchen where he sat Sherlock down, made him a cup of tea and toast with strawberry jam on it, took out one of Mrs Hudson’s old aprons and began to fill a large sponge cake with chocolate-and-cream filling with a tad of brandy spooned into it. The gold ring in John’s finger caught the light every so often, making it gleam so brightly it looked brand new or polished within an inch of its life.

Come Wednesday, John _will_  take it out and polish it, along with the identical one in Sherlock’s finger. He had said that for one’s 40th birthday, one could for once look clean and orderly, including the only jewel one wore. Especially considering what that single jewel must have gone through in the last year and a half ( _19 months, 15 days, 5 hours, 42 minutes and 7 seconds_ ) after it had been slipped on for the first time and never having seen a clean day since, what with all the running in sewers and dirty alleys and probably being covered in dirt and suspects’ blood more often than was necessary.

Munching on his toast, Sherlock inspected the golden band in his left ring finger and took out his phone to google for The Easiest Way to Clean Your Wedding Ring without Having to Go to Tesco Again to Buy Over-Expensive Gold Polishing Supplies.


End file.
